Created by a group of Baltimore investors as a result of the 1928 Merchant
Marine Act to provide fast cargo service to Hamburg, Le Havre, London, and
Southampton. Another unsuccessful attempt by an east coast city to set up a line
expressly to divert cargo away from New York, although the lack of success was
more a result of government action (cancellation of all mail contracts under the
1936 Merchant Marine Act) rather than through any fault of the line's
management. The flag was a variation on the Maryland state flag, white with a
cross bottony per cross golden orange and black.

The Black Ball Line, later also called the Old Line, was one of the historic endeavors in all of shipping history, the first "line" of vessels crossing
the the Atlantic (from New York to Liverpool) on a regular schedule--initially
monthly departures in each direction using a fleet of four ships. I believe it
is also of special vexillological interest as the name of the company came from
the design of the house flag--a red swallowtailed flag with a black disk in the
center. A black ball also appeared on the foresail (the lowest sail on the
foremast). The custom of naming or nicknaming the line after the flag was
picked up by many others: the Red Cross, the Blue Swallow Tail, the White
Diamond, the Black Star, etc.

Source: chart of "Private Signals of the Merchants of New York"

Joe McMillan, 30 August 2001

There is a ferry from Washington State
to Victoria BC, CA which wears a flag 'gules a pellet fimbriated argent' (a red
flag with a white edged black ball). This line is sometimes referred to as the
Black Ball Line. A little digging turns up that "Black Ball" is the nickname
(flag-derived of course) for the WA state ferries, originally the Puget Sound
Navigation System. Some of Seattle's maritime history is at:
www.historylink.org/output.CFM?file_ID=2474. They use the name "Black
Ball Line" for the PSNS, although not the State-owned system (from 1951).

Black Diamond SS Corp. (1918-ca. 1955), New York
Originally called the American Diamond
Line, this company carried cargo between New York and Rotterdam and Antwerp. It
was hit very hard by the restriction imposed by US neutrality in the early
stages of World War II. During the war, the company sold off all its
ships--which were under government control for the time being anyhow--then tried
unsuccessfully to get back into business after the war, ceasing operations in
the mid-1950s. The flag was a black horizontally arranged diamond on a yellow
field.
Source:
Stewart & Styring (1963)

Black Star Line (Manning 1874)
I believe from verbal descriptions I have seen that this is the Black Star Line
that was a major force in Irish immigration via Liverpool to the United States
in the mid-19th century. As best I can figure, a variety of New York lines
operated from New York to Liverpool under their own names, but on the return
trip flew the red pennant with black star of the Black Star Line. It was, in
effect, a consortium, or at least that's what I make of the characterization of
various companies' ships as "clearing from Liverpool in the Black Star Line." On
the other hand, Williams and Guion were one of the companies so characterized,
and their own flag featured a black star on a blue-white-blue horizontal triband,
which will be forwarded when I get to the W's. Maybe others know more
about this history.
Source: Manning (1874)

Joe McMillan, 15 September 2001

I found several on-line sources that make it clear to me that the Liverpool
"Black Star Line" was the Williams & Guion company (US flagged) before 1866 and
the Guion Line (British flagged) after 1866. The flag for this company under
both names was blue with a white lozenge and a black star on it. Most pictures
have a five-pointed star but I've seen some with six points. In any case, I now
don't know what "Black Star Line" would have flown a red swallowtail with a
black star, but I did find it in the source I mentioned, without explanation as
to its use.

Founded to take advantage of the supply
of cheap surplus vessels after World War II with the intention of operating
between the Gulf of Mexico ports and Europe and the Mediterranean. It faced
bruising opposition from Lykes Brothers SS Co, which had ruthlessly suppressed
competition in that market for decades. Korean War business kept Bloomfield
afloat, but it was soon taken over by the much larger States Marine Corporation,
which stopped using the Bloomfield trade name in 1968. The flag was a blue
swallowtail with a white star superimposed on a red "B."

Boland and Cornelius, New York
Messrs Boland and Cornelius founded what is now the American Steamship Co in
1907. American SS Co, now a subsidiary of GATX Corporation, operates one of the
largest fleets on the Great Lakes.
Stewart (1953)

Joe McMillan, 12 October 2001

by Joe McMillan

Boland and Cornelius
A white flag with a large red "A" and a
blue border--I take it that the "A" is for American and that what
Stewart (1953) calls
Boland and Cornelius is in fact American Steamship.
Stewart (1953)

Joe McMillan, 15 September 2001

I speculated above that this was actually the flag of the American Steamship
Co, then a Boland and Cornelius subsidiary and now the shipping arm of GATX
Corporation. I have since found this additional source from the same general
period that shows a different Boland and Cornelius flag: a white burgee with red
upper and lower edges and the initials B&C in blue. Clearly this was the flag of
the parent company and the A flag probably, as I had suggested, that of the
subsidiary.
Source: Talbot-Booth (1937)

Boyd & Hincken was one of the major firms of sail packet operators in New
York in the mid-19th century. Its ships displayed an unusual triple tailed flag
consisting of a red hoist with a white ring (or letter "O") and three tails of
yellow, white, and yellow. The ship's of the firms New York & Havre Line (also
known as the Second Line of Havre Packets) had the same flag but with the letter
"B."

The Ocean Steam Navigation Company, or Bremen Line, was the first U.S.-flag
steamship company to offer regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic service. It was
founded in response to a U.S. government decision to subsidize a steamship
operation by means of mail contracts in an attempt to compete with British
government subsidies to British lines. Edward Mills, a novice in the shipping
business, led the syndicate that received the contract for mail delivery to Le
Havre and Bremen but was unable to attract sufficient capital to carry out his
original business plan and began operations with only one ship, the Washington,
in June 1847. It was a poorly designed ship, slow and with insufficient cargo
space, and the government soon revoked the Le Havre portion of the mail contract
because of the line's poor performance. Nevertheless! , the Bremen Line survived
until it was driven out of business in 1857 by Cornelius Vanderbilt's more
modern fleet in 1857. The house flag of the Bremen Line was the red and white
striped Bremen ensign, defaced by a white panel bearing a profile of the ship.
The GIF being sent separately shows the line's first ship, the steamer
Washington.

Source: description in North Atlantic Seaway I:186

Joe McMillan, 1 September 2001

S. Broom

by Joe McMillan

S. Broom, New York (Source: PSMNY)
A New York firm operating to California in the Gold Rush period of the 1850s.

A. H. Bull & Co., New York (1902-1963)
An early version of the flag, with the border all the way around instead of just
on the upper and lower edges and fly.
Source: Lloyds (1912)

by Joe McMillan

Archibald H. Bull was the founder of the British-flagged New York and Porto
[sic] Rico Steamship Co in 1885, which succeeded an earlier line of sailing
packets on the same route that he had established in 1873. In 1900, his
stake in the company was bought out by his partners in a hostile takeover,
and Bull was forced to give up running steamers to Puerto Rico for 10 years.
So in 1902 he set up the Bull Line to serve the US Atlantic coastwise
trade and operate sail vessels to Puerto Rico. Bull's heirs eventually
failed to see wave of containerization coming, sold out to American Coal
Shipping in 1956. Sea-Land, the pioneer container firm wanted to buy the
line in 1961, but instead it was sold to Greece's Manuel K. Kulukundis,
whose companies all went bankrupt in 1963, bringing the Bull Line's history
to an end. The flag was a white swallowtailed pennant bordered in red, with
a blue initial B.

In 1914, A. H. Bull bought the Insular Line, which had been established in
1904 as a successor to his old company, and renamed it the Bull Insular Line. It
flew a flag similar to that of the Bull Line itself, but with a red letter I
interlaced with the blue B. [wed26]